by Matthew Reed

Created on: June 02, 2008

The house was stout. Fat timbers supported the sagging thatch roof like immobile monoliths. The mud-brick walls had holes, but still retained an air of heavy strength. Empty casement windows gaped in blind horror. The front door, a slab of oak three inches thick and bound with iron bands, lay in the sticky mud, cast aside and as forgotten as boiled bones. Rivulets of water streamed through the blackened orifice of the entryway. Dead brambles pushed against the tired, but implacable walls. Rusting remains of tools lay half-buried under the mud and tangled vines. A tumbled stone fence was partially obscured by accumulated layers of organic refuse from the neighbors.

The lane faded into a wide, muddy depression, a long-suffering recipient of the myriad traces and paths that wound from the wild into town. No single road, or even several roads, dominated the miry confluence. The morass continued past the house and joined the de facto main street. The streets were meandering adventures, the cobbles seeming as lost and confused as the uncertain path of the avenues. The populace placed little concern in the aesthetic value of their domestic thoroughfares; more often the citizens used the slick, sticky muck as a public lavatory. Houses and businesses lined the streets anonymously, with each grey stone faade nearly identical to its flanking brothers. Voices floated from featureless homes.

"Eat. We don't have that much to waste."

"Chewed em up good. Steel shod monsters."

"Well?"

"War's coming."

"Think they're gonna go digging around, natch. Don't own a shilling but blast they're gonna dig."

"Danny says there may be work in Tor Amarth. I think I should try."

"Who lives in that house?"

There was the sound of phlegm being spat into the mud; two pairs of feet squelched slowly, the echo carrying stronger as a light breeze carried the sound.

"Don't pay mind to that pile of rubble, Daz. It's just one more place you don't go to play. Mums are planted there."

A child's voice whined wordlessly before a loud slap brought the noise to an early end.

"Shut your mouth. If we're seen, we be breathing our last. Come. Hurry!"

The squelching footsteps sped up their pace only marginally. A shadow passed over the village as clouds moved in front of the sun. They were billowy, fantastic things, empty of omen. The breeze strengthened to steady, but light; it was enough to blow loose papers from desks and tables, annoying ministers and bankers. Reeds and willows rustled from the other end of town. A bullfrog

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